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rogues

 - 3 dictionary results

rogue

[rohg] noun, verb, rogued, ro⋅guing, adjective
–noun
1. a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel.
2. a playfully mischievous person; scamp: The youngest boys are little rogues.
3. a tramp or vagabond.
4. a rogue elephant or other animal of similar disposition.
5. Biology. a usually inferior organism, esp. a plant, varying markedly from the normal.
–verb (used without object)
6. to live or act as a rogue.
–verb (used with object)
7. to cheat.
8. to uproot or destroy (plants, etc., that do not conform to a desired standard).
9. to perform this operation upon: to rogue a field.
–adjective
10. (of an animal) having an abnormally savage or unpredictable disposition, as a rogue elephant.
11. no longer obedient, belonging, or accepted and hence not controllable or answerable; deviating, renegade: a rogue cop; a rogue union local.

Origin:
1555–65; appar. short for obs. roger begging vagabond, orig. cant word


1. villain, trickster, swindler, cheat, mountebank, quack. See knave.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To rogues
rogue   (rōg)   
n.  
  1. An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal.

  2. One who is playfully mischievous; a scamp.

  3. A wandering beggar; a vagrant.

  4. A vicious and solitary animal, especially an elephant that has separated itself from its herd.

  5. An organism, especially a plant, that shows an undesirable variation from a standard.

adj.  
  1. Vicious and solitary. Used of an animal, especially an elephant.

  2. Large, destructive, and anomalous or unpredictable: a rogue wave; a rogue tornado.

  3. Operating outside normal or desirable controls: "How could a single rogue trader bring down an otherwise profitable and well-regarded institution?" (Saul Hansell).

v.   rogued, rogu·ing, rogues

v.   tr.
  1. To defraud.

  2. To remove (diseased or abnormal specimens) from a group of plants of the same variety.

v.   intr.
To remove diseased or abnormal plants.

[Origin unknown.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

rogue 
1561, "idle vagrant," perhaps a shortened form of roger (with a hard -g-), thieves' slang for a begging vagabond who pretends to be a poor scholar from Oxford or Cambridge, perhaps from L. rogare "to ask." Another theory traces it to Celtic (cf. Bret. rog "haughty"); OED says, "There is no evidence of connexion with F. rogue 'arrogant.' " Rogue's gallery "police collection of mug shots" is attested from 1859.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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